Portage Parks & Recreation Department and Woodland Park PreSchool students are celebrating National Arbor Day on, Friday, April 30th at Woodland Park. 
Arbor Day is a nationally-celebrated observance that encourages tree planting and care. Founded by J. Sterling Morton, a journalist who loved nature and appreciated the value that trees added to life in the 1800’s (trees served as windbreaks to keep soil in place, for fuel and building materials, and for shade from the hot sun). Morton advocated for tree plantings and proposed a tree-planting holiday in April of 1872. Over one million trees were estimated to have been planted that first Arbor Day!
Traditionally celebrated on the last Friday in April, Portage’s Arbor Day celebration will take place at 1:30pm. The celebration will include preschool students planting a river birch tree outside the school building. Cynthia Smith-Faught, the Environmental Coordinator for the City, will speak about the annual holiday and the significance of trees in our lives today.
The community is invited to join the celebration and encouraged to hold their own celebrations by planting trees in their communities, picking up branches and leaf debris, or just by hugging a tree!
For more information about National Arbor Day visit www.arborday.org or contact Smith-Faught at the Portage Parks and Recreation office at 762-1675.